Category Archives: Liberal

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other liberal pundits on Twitter railed against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for reportedly dining with President Donald Trump recently amid political ad controversy.

Trump hosted the billionaire tech tycoon at the White House in October alongside Facebook board member Peter Thiel, NBC reported Wednesday. Thiel is a major Trump backer and conservative inside the traditionally liberal confines of Silicon Valley.

Journalist Ben Collins teased the report with a tweet Wednesday promising an enormous scoop. The dinner was previously undisclosed.

As is normal for a CEO of a major U.S. company, Mark accepted an invitation to have dinner with the President and First Lady at the White House, a Facebook representative said in in a press statement, according to NBCs report. It is not clear what the two sides discussed, NBC noted. Facebook has not responded to the Daily Caller News Foundations request for for comment.

The White House declined to comment for this article.

Collinss report was published the night of the fifth Democratic primary debate in Atlanta, Georgia, and shortly after House lawmakers concluded another day of questioning witnesses in the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry. Warren commented on the story hours after walking off the debate stage.

Amid antitrust scrutiny, Facebook is going on a charm offensive with Republican lawmakers, Warren, who announced her presidential bid in February, wrote Thursday. And now, Mark Zuckerberg and one of Facebooks board members a major Trump donor had a secret dinner with Trump. This is corruption, plain and simple.

The senator went on to suggest she has a plan to root out corruption in Washington. Warren spent the past few months railing against what she said is a conspiracybetween the president and Zuckerberg to rig the 2020 election.

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked in a Twitter post Wednesday night why the Zuckerberg dinner WOULD NEED TO BE SECRET?

Zuckerberg is attacking Warren and dining with Trump, Judd Legum, a journalist who worked for former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons 2008 presidential campaign, said in a tweet Thursday morning. Rule, Legum, and Warrens criticisms came as media and Democratic politicians railed against Facebooks decision to not make Trumps posts subject to fact-checks.

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Trump Dined With Zuckerberg: Liberals React - The National Interest Online

Chrystia Freeland deserves a lot of credit for saving Canada from Donald Trump. Can she save the Liberals from Doug Ford, Jason Kenney and Franois Legault?

That may sound facetious, but it is, in essence, the task shes been given in her position as minister of intergovernmental affairs. If Octobers election proved anything, its that Canada is a country in which the bonds of unity can never be taken for granted. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau let them fray badly in his first mandate. In the opinion of many, he contributed substantially to the fraying. Its never clear how deeply this prime minister absorbs any of the lessons hes been offered since first taking office, but the voting results, and the growing cacophony of provincial acrimony, have evidently made him aware at some level that something serious needs to be done to bring calm to the provinces. So hes turned to Freeland.

Perhaps thats a sign that he understands Freeland has skills he lacks. It is no small achievement to have gone head-to-head with the White House over Canadas most vital trade relationship and emerge with a deal that protects Canadas interests while allowing the vainest and most self-centred of presidents to claim victory. The new NAFTA is a true rarity of the Trump administration, a complex accord that satisfies all three signatories, and has the backing both of the Oval Office and a divided Congress that has been at war with itself since the day Trump took office. Even as one wing of Congress is trying to oust Trump on impeachment charges, legislators on all sides are working hard to find a way to approve the pact so they can prove theyre capable of something besides partisan bloodshed.

Perhaps thats a sign that Trudeau understands Freeland has skills he lacks

Outside the U.S., Freeland helped nail down a trade deal with the European Union that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cites as his goal if and when Brexit is achieved. Shes also handled the task of dealing with Chinas leadership at a time when its abandoned diplomacy for a nationalistic megaphone.

Given her record, it might seem that finding harmony with a handful of provincial premiers would be an easier task. Obviously it wont have the international implications, but thats no reason to underestimate the ability of Canadas political class to pick fights with one another. Kenney might not be in office now if Rachel Notley hadnt underestimated the pig-headedness of her fellow premiers, not to mention members of her own party. And Kenney has plainly decided that doing battle with Ottawa is to be a core part of his governments identity. The combative address he delivered a week ago in Red Deer was nothing if not fair warning to the new minority government that he sees it as a major impediment to the pursuit of Albertas best interests, and hes far from alone in that view: Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe left his post-election confab with Trudeau looking downcast and predicting more of the same tone deafness from an Eastern-oriented administration fixated on its same old obsessions.

Freeland will also have to find a way to make nice with Ontarios Doug Ford, who spent much of the federal election in hiding but was nonetheless treated to a startlingly aggressive series of insults and attacks. Fords first year in office was filled with stumbles, and it may be that Trudeaus people assume the remainder of his term will prove as self-destructive, but there are signs that Ford isnt planning to go along with that scenario: his walking time-bomb of a chief of staff has been dumped, rhetoric has been toned down, contentious policies have been softened or re-thought and Ford made a point of congratulating Trudeau on his re-election while stressing the strains on national unity, which he likely doesnt believe are the fault of the provinces. Hes offered to host a gathering of the premiers to discuss the unity problem, an offer that won the praise of Toronto Mayor John Tory, who hasnt always been a fan of the Ford family.

There is one near-certain means to put smiles on faces at Queens Park, and thats to trundle Ottawas cash-dispensing machine into the province and set it on high. The Trudeauites have never demonstrated a reluctance to spend money in bulk, and would have been lucky to place a distant second in October if not for the voters in and around the Toronto megalopolis. The region desperately needs money for a vast expansion of public transit, and transit fits nicely into the Liberal climate change agenda, so if Freeland finds herself spending a lot of time championing the delivery of large cheques to grinning Tories, it wouldnt be a total surprise. It cant hurt that shes also now the deputy prime minister, and represents a downtown Toronto riding, quite near that of Finance Minister Bill Morneau. So while the Liberals may not fathom Western alienation, they should certainly grasp what makes Toronto happy.

It cant hurt that shes also now the deputy prime minister

That leaves Quebec, where Legault has spent much of the past year inviting Ottawa to keep its nose out of local affairs. Should the courts fail to derail Bill 21, the contentious provincial secularism law, Trudeau could find himself forced to keep his heavily-hinted-at plan to intervene, an act that would impact unity like an improvised explosive device. Add to that the fact that some concessions likely to make Jason Kenney happy like a radical change in equalization are just as likely to inspire outbursts of political outrage from Quebec, and the traditional demands for redress. It wont help to have newly-empowered Bloc Qubcois leader Yves-Franois Blanchet tossing out separatist complaints about any federal action that isnt wholly and completely designed for the sole benefit of Quebec, as he has shown great skill in doing.

Freelands political skills are such that she managed to emerge from the SNC-Lavalin affair unscorched, despite her bosss ugly display towards two serious-minded and intelligent women. Shell need that and more if she hopes to keep four grumpy premiers happy, at which point shell probably face a chorus of complaints from the other six that they werent getting equal attention. Its the nature of Canadian federalism, a perpetual effort to test the strength of the bonds that hold us together.

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Kelly McParland: Can Chrystia Freeland save the Liberals? (And Canada, while she's at it) - National Post

For constitutional originalists, its crucial to get your history right. This is especially important when little-known provisions of the Constitution are invoked to resolve hot-button issues of contemporary importance.

The perils of bad history are on vivid display in recent high-visibility critiques of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for their proposed wealth taxes on the super-rich. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Professors Daniel Hemel and Rebecca Kysar assert that these wealth tax initiatives violate a constitutional provision that was part the founders notorious compromise on slavery.

To seduce the South into the Union, the Philadelphia Convention authorized the Southerners to add three-fifths of their slaves when reapportioning their representation in the House and Electoral College after each census. That concession meant that the North would have the House and presidency stacked against it, making it very tough to restrict slavery for many generations to come.

In exchange for these devastating concessions, the convention offered the North a consolation prize. They could use their limited political leverage to get Congress to pass a tax package that would require the South to pay a bigger share of the total bill. While other taxes had to be uniform throughout the United States, the founders added a special provision authorizing the government to impose a head tax that would hit each slave at the same rate as each free citizen. Since slaves represented 30 to 40 percent of the population in the South but only a small share in the North, these head taxes would have a disproportionate impact on Southern whites.

This part of the deal only took final form at the conventions mop-up session of September 14, as the delegates were heading toward the exit. While the terms of the capitation tax on slaves had been up for grabs during the preceding weeks, it was only then thatGeorge Read of Delaware moved to add the three words Capitation and other direct, taxes to the final draft, explaining that [h]e was afraid that some liberty might otherwise be taken to manipulate the terms of the deal. Since the convention had lots of other compromises to make as they rushed out the door, Reads last-minute addition was accepted without further debate. Yet it is precisely these three wordsother direct taxeswhich Hemel and Kysar propose to weaponize in their constitutional campaign against the wealth tax.

Yet the original understanding of this provision refutes their interpretation of this formula. The meaning of other direct taxes was the very first high-visibility question presented to the Supreme Court in 1796. Newspaper coverage was intense, as the country considered how the Court would handle its constitutional responsibilities. (This was seven years before John Marshall handed down his famous opinion in Marbury v. Madison, the first case in which the Court asserted the power of judicial review.)

The justices responded in Hylton v. United States by unanimously rejecting an expansionary reading of the other-clause, with the principal opinion by Justice Chase insisting that the rule of apportionment [by population] is only to be adopted in such cases where it can reasonably apply.

Although Hemel and Kysar reluctantly recognize this point, they try to trivialize its significance by recruiting Alexander Hamilton to their side. To assess their maneuver, here are a few facts. Hylton involved a direct tax that Congress had imposed on luxury carriages. Since these expensive vehicles were concentrated in a few commercial centers, treating this tax as if it were a direct tax would not have imposed a disproportionate burden on the slave states, as originally intended. Instead, turning it into a direct tax would have hit the relatively poor states, both North and South, where luxury vehicles were rarely to be found.

In response to this obvious injustice, Congress followed the rule of reason and invoked its broad constitutional power to impose all indirect taxes on a national basis, requiring carriage-owners to pay the same amount without regard to their particular state of residence.

Alexander Hamilton served as the principal lawyer defending this congressional decision when it was challenged before the Court. In making his case, however, he engaged in a characteristic lawyerly maneuver. Rather than inviting the justices to announce broad principles in their maiden constitutional voyage, he urged them to stick to the particular problem at hand. He emphasized that the carriage tax did not involve general assessments on the whole property of individuals, but only targeted a single asset. As a consequence, the Court could uphold Congresss decision in this particular case without definitively resolving the larger question whether a more comprehensive impost might qualify as a direct tax.

Hemel and Kysar seize upon Hamiltons lawyerly maneuver and use it as decisive evidence that the founders believed that a general assessment on overall wealth required state-by-state apportionment. They fail to mention, however, that none of the justices unequivocally endorsed Hamiltons position in their opinions. Moreover, the Court included two leading members of the Constitutional Convention and one signer of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, their self-conscious refusal to sign on to Hamiltons position argues against, not for,the Hemel-Kysar effort to make Hamiltons extreme view central to the original understanding. Perhaps Lin-Manuel Miranda should consider making the justices dramatic rejection of Hamilton into a sequel to his Broadway success.

Nevertheless, the critics might be able to salvage their position if Hyltons rule of reason had provoked intense opposition throughout the country. Instead, the decision generated a wave of popular support. Only one year passed before Congress enacted the nation's first wealth tax, imposing progressive rates on recipients of legacies and owners of shares in insurance companies and banks.

Given the Courts recent decision in Hylton, these taxes did not provoke litigation, since they were sure losers. But over the course of the 19th century, nationwide taxes on both income and wealth repeatedly drove taxpayers to the courts, only to find the justices consistently upholding their constitutionality. As a consequence, the drafters of the 14th and 15th Amendments saw no need to repeal the apportionment requirement for other direct taxes when they swept away every other textual expression of the founding compromise with slavery during Reconstruction.

In 1881, the justices upheld the decision by Congress to continue imposing income taxes even after the Civil War emergency had passed. It unanimously rejected the inevitable complaint that they involved direct taxation. Relying explicitly on Hylton,the Court could not have been more explicit: Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estateand nothing else.

Yet 14 years later, five of the justices defied a century of precedent in their 1895 decision in Pollack v. Farmers Loan and Trust, striking down a new congressionally enacted income tax. By the narrowest majority, they dramatically expanded the scope of the direct tax provision. As in the contemporaneous case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice John Marshall Harlan issued an emphatic dissent denouncing the majority for reinvigorating the nations constitutional legacy of slavery. But while his great dissent in Plessy was ignored, his eloquent opinion in Pollock helped provoke a broad-based movement demanding a return to Hyltons rule of reason.

Within three years, Congress responded to this popular groundswell by defying the Court and enacting another wealth tax on inheritance. This forced the justices to confront a moment of truth. If the conservatives continued to insist on their precedent-shattering expansion of the direct tax provision, they would trigger an escalating confrontation with the political branches that threatened to destroy the legitimacy of the entire enterprise of judicial review.

When faced with this prospect, the conservatives retreated in disarray. In its 1900 decision of Knowlton v. Moore, the Court unanimously upheld the new wealth tax. While different justices explained their dramatic U-turn in different ways, there was no mistaking the Courts return to the narrow reading of direct taxation that had prevailed since Hylton was decided in 1796.

Yet the Courts humiliating turnaround wasnt enough to satisfy the Progressive political movement once it gained a decisive victory in the elections of 1908. The new congressional leadership immediately moved to pass another income tax statute and force the conservatives on the Court publicly to declare that Pollock was wrong from the moment it was decided.

Their initiative, however, met with resistance from the newly elected William Howard Taft, who would later become the only president to ascend to the chief justiceship. When campaigning for the White House, Taft had explicitly supported the Progressives plan: [I]t is not free from debate how the Supreme Court, with changed membership, would view a new income tax law.But once installed in the White House, he refused to take the risk that the reactionary Court of the Lochner era would hold its ground and strike down the income tax yet againdramatically damaging its legitimacy before the public. Instead, he wanted Congress to do it, by proposing a constitutional amendment repudiating, once and for all, Pollocks precedent-shattering reading. But this required the Progressives in Congress to win two-thirds majorities in both House and Senate before their initiative could be sent to the states for ratification.

Building these supermajorities would be a tough for the congressional leadership. Nevertheless, they went along with Tafts request and made a good-faith try. Since Knowlton had already upheld wealth taxes, the leaders on Capitol Hill made coalition-building easier for themselves. They framed the 16th Amendment to make it a symbol of the widespread popular demand to repudiate Pollock once and for all. Their text focused on the imperative need to grant the national government the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.

Their strategy was remarkably successful. Within a year, supermajorities in both houses backed their initiative. Once Congress sent its proposal to the states in 1909, it took only four years for 42 out of 48 of them to say yesmaking the 16th Amendments enactment one of the most remarkable achievements of popular sovereignty in the 20th century.

Yet Professors Hemel and Kysar entirely fail to confront the original understanding of the voters and their representatives in speaking in the name of We the People of the United States. Rather than recognizing the 16th Amendment as a self-conscious decision by Americans to return to the founders rule of reason, they are urging us to rehabilitate Pollocks discredited effort to breathe new life into the Philadelphia Conventions compromise with slavery.

Senators Sanders and Warren should not let such a maneuver deflect them from their efforts to confront the escalating inequalities of the Second Gilded Age.

The Roberts Court should also reject their invitation to strike down a wealth tax if Democrats manage to win the coming election and enact it into law. If the current conservative majority is to remain true to its professed commitment to originalism, it has no choice but to recognize that the American people have addressed the precise issue in the 18th and the 20th centuriesand resolved it both timesin a fashion that clears the way for a wealth tax.

Their fidelity to originalism would also permit the justices to avoid a constitutional crisis of the first magnitude. Given the political furor surrounding the appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, it is imperative for the reconstituted Court to demonstrate that its originalism is not merely a pretext for exercising a right-wing veto on the voters decision to elect Democrats to govern the House, Senate, and presidency. If a majority strikes down the wealth tax, it would provoke a legitimacy crisis on a scale not seen since Roosevelt tried to pack the Court in 1937.

Nobody can say how such a confrontation will turn out this time around. There can be doubt, however, that Chief Justice John Roberts is well aware of the dangers involved. Recall the way he was the swing vote in upholding Obamacare in June 2012, despite his own very grave reservations as to its constitutionality. Nevertheless, he recognized that a 5-to-4 veto of the presidents signature initiative would have provoked a Democratic counterattack on the conservative justices during Obamas re-election campaignand that such an onslaught would grievously damage the Courts legitimacy for a long time to come.

I have no doubt that Roberts would once again try his hand at judicial statesmanship if the Democrats emerge victorious in 2020. Only this time around, he is no longer the swing vote who can mediate the divide between conservative and liberal judicial factions. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to convince Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to recognize that prudence, as well as principle, requires them to uphold the wealth tax, and avoid a shattering crisis to the Courts legitimacy.

Sorry, but my crystal ball clouds over at this point. But if the new appointees resist, we will be witnessing a tragedy in the classic Greek sense.

Professor Ackerman has provided advice to Elizabeth Warren about the constitutionality of the wealth tax.

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Why Are Liberal Democrats Leading the Constitutional Campaign Against the Wealth Tax? - The American Prospect

The eagerness of Swinson (pictured) to respond that she would take part in a strike points to a hawkish, if vague, foreign policy outlook. Photo: PA

I still cant quite work out what was the worst part of Jo Swinsons answer about whether she would authorise a nuclear attack with the potential to kill millions of innocent civilians. Was it the simple, instant yes? Was it the smile just after she said it? Was it the astonishing response of the interviewer, Nina Hossain, who thought the answer was brilliant, because Swinson had used just a single word? Was it the complete lack of follow-up? Or was it the fact that you just know she thinks she smashed it?

There was a time when even those in favour of the UK having its own nuclear deterrent understood that if the country ever actually deployed any of its weapons it would be the worlds greatest ever man-made catastrophe. The most likely scenario of a British prime minister deploying nuclear weapons would be in response to a nuclear strike already underway, therefore guaranteeing mutually assured destruction. If the UK was striking firstand unlike Russia and China, the UK has always refused to rule this outany nuclear-armed foe would respond in kind.

Which means, to go back to that mythical scenario when Prime Minister Swinson proudly pushed the button, a nuclear warhead would also be on its way to the UK, probably to London, and millions of us, probably including Swinson, would be just minutes away from death. But yes, okay, brilliant answer.

Until the election of Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats policy on nuclear weapons was the most sceptical of the three major parties. In 2007, its conference almost voted to scrap Trident immediately,eventually narrowly agreeingto back its leader, Menzies Campbell, who planned to scrap it in 2014. Jo Swinson, then a backbench MP, backed the policy and voted against Tridents replacement when it came before parliament.

But Corbyns election in 2015, and Labours steady shift on foreign policy after the sacking of Hillary Benn towards a more Corbynite view of the world, has clearly had an impact on the UKs third party. It sees an opening as the sensible party that is prepared to deploy nuclear weapons in the name of security. The party that opposed the Iraq War now has a foreign policy of which Tony Blair would be proud.

The partys manifesto, launched yesterday somewhat incongruously in a London nightclub, is full of boilerplate international liberalism. They would champion the liberal, rules-based order, and work through the UN. There is little detail about how those aspirations will be turned into reality. On Syria, the manifesto states that a Lib Dem government would cooperate internationally to stabilise the region and provide humanitarian assistance, while on Ukraine it would promote democracy and stability.

This is bland idealism that only has a chance of success if no one opposes itwhich, of course, someone will.

There are some interesting details. The party would recognise Palestine, suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia and back a Europe-wide Magnitsky Act that would enable sanctions against corrupt individuals and perpetrators of human rights abuses.

On international development, they would focus more spending on tackling both the causes and the impact of climate change, while the promise to develop a global education strategy to address the urgent crisis of 263 million children missing out on schooling will look very familiar to Gordon Brown.

But on the whole, it feels like a set of answers from the early 2000s to a series of problems from a very differentand more volatileworld. Few concrete ideas about how to deal with the rise of authoritarianism, no thoughts about how to respond to a rogue US president, and very little to say about the liberal, rules-based order other than it would be nice if it still existed. The world has moved on and the Lib Dems have moved back. All that were left with is platitudes and glib promises to be prepared to kill millions of people.

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The UK had finally moved on from the hawkish "liberalism" of New Labour. Enter Jo Swinson - Prospect

EXCLUSIVE: Attorney General Bill Barr and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf are warning state supreme courts in Washington and Oregon that moves to stop federal immigration enforcement from making arrests in and around courthouses willcreate an unacceptable risk by letting illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes loose in communities.

Regardless of how one views our immigration laws, we should all agree that public safety should be of paramount concern, says the letter from Barr and Wolf to chief justices in those states, obtained by Fox News. Court rules that would purport to further restrict the lawful operations of federal law enforcement officials only serve to exacerbate sanctuary laws and policies that continue to place ourcommunities at unacceptable risk.

ICE WARNS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FACING MURDER, CHILD SEX OFFENSE CHARGES COULD BE RELEASED IN NORTH CAROLINA

The letter comes after Oregons Supreme Court restrictedImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from making arrests of illegal immigrants in and around courthouses without a judicial warrant. Washington is reportedly considering adopting similar rules.

The Trump administration as a whole has been aggressively pushing back against sanctuary city policies that bar state and local cooperation with detainers issued by federal immigration authorities. Those detainers are requests that ICE be notified when an illegal immigrant is due to be released from custody so they can be deported.

While advocates of those sanctuary policies say that they encourage cooperation of immigrant communities with law enforcement, opponents note the countless number of criminals who have been released onto the streets, with many going on to re-offend.

These states laws and policies force state and local officers to release criminal aliens into communities in your States, endangering the public and forcing it to bear the cost of any additional criminal acts they may proceed to commit, Barr and Wolf said. These policies have resulted in the release of criminal aliens with convictions for serious and violent offenses, such as domestic violence assaults, firearms offenses, drug trafficking offenses, and violation of protection orders.

With the letter, the administration includes examples in Oregon and Washington of convicted criminals who have been released, with some going on to re-offend. One of those cited is the case ofan illegal immigrant from Honduras with prior criminal convictions, for whom ICE lodged a detainer in 2017 but he was released from a Washington state jail. In January 2018, the man was arrested again and booked for the second-degree murder and the dismemberment of his cousin.

ICE NABS DOZENS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH RECORD OF CHILD SEX OFFENSES, AS DIRECTOR SLAMS SANCTUARY CITIES

Put simply, the policies you are considering endanger the public and hamper law enforcement by interfering with that lawful process, the letter says.

The letter, coming from two top department chiefs, is the latest sign of the administration ramping up its efforts against sanctuary cities. Acting ICE Director Matt Albence has held a series of press conferences highlighting the dangers of sanctuary policies, while the department is releasing lists of those with serious arrests who could one day be released into communities.

That push has seen signs of success already.

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Montgomery County, Md, recently rolled back some of its policies amid intense criticism from administration officials, after a series of released illegal immigrants were later arrested on suspicion of sex offenses.

Meanwhile, voters in Tucson, Arizona this month voted against a measure tomake the city an official sanctuary city and impose even more measures on officers trying to enforce federal immigration law.

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Trump administration delivers warning to liberal states moving to bar ICE from courthouses - Fox News

On Wednesday November 20th, the Liberal Police Department concluded an investigation in regard to threats received at the Liberal High School. The threats were found written in one of the stalls in a restroom. They indicated that a school shooting was to take place on Wednesday the 20th.

As a result of these threats, extra police personnel were assigned to the school to prevent possible violence and to determine who made these threats. Numerous interviews were conducted in an attempt to locate the suspects.

A second threat referencing the shooting was received later that day. Investigating officers were able to quickly determine the source of that threat and take him into custody. The 15 year old male was charged with criminal threat.

Further information obtained led to the arrest of a 14 year old male in relation to the original threats made. He will be charged with aggravated criminal threat.

At this time, there is no indication that either suspect had the capability or intent to actually commit a school shooting. No additional people are believed to be involved. Affidavits were forwarded to the Seward County Attorneys Office for the determination of formal charges.

Although it appears that no shooting was going to take place, all threats of this nature are taken seriously and will result in prosecution.

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14 and 15 Year Old Arrested in School Threat at Liberal High School - KSCB News.net

The annual Halifax International Security Forum runs from Friday to Sunday of this week. To mark the occasion, the National Post is presenting a series of essays written by conference participants. Today, Janice Gross Stein discusses the disruptive forces that are changing the face of international order.

Democratic allies of the United States are feeling lonely. They are shaking their heads in disbelief at the arbitrary way President Donald Trump abandoned the Kurds and, in a phone call, all but gave President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey a green light to cross the border into Syria, and pummel Americas former ally with artillery fire. The howls of outrage from former senior U.S. military officers, and senators do not decrease the worry about a United States that is turning inward, and seems to care little for its long-standing friends.

It is not only the substance of U.S. policy that has raised anxieties in the democratic alliance to new heights. There is a legitimate debate to be had about the wisdom of stationing forces in the Middle East, and many allies would agree that a considered rethink is appropriate. There is also widespread agreement in the democratic world on tougher policies toward China, although far less support for tariffs as the principal instrument.

It is not only the substance of U.S. policy that has raised anxieties

What is so alarming is the openly transactional perspective of the leader of the democratic alliance. This president prefers autocrats to bothersome democrats. After all, autocrats have far more political space to make deals than do democrats, and they are far less constrained by the rules.

Relationships are far more important to allies than deals. Allies count on relationships that are built over time, and create trust. These relationships are shock absorbers that insulate alliances even when there is serious policy disagreement. Germany and Canada disagreed with president George Bushs decision to use military force in Iraq in 2003, but no one questioned the value of the alliance, and everyone was careful to protect the relationships.

Alliances are not consistent with transactional politics where the deal is more important than the partner. What are lonely friends to do?

Some allies believe that this presidency will pass, in a year or in five, and then all will return to normal. The strategy is therefore to shore up the liberal international order that was especially important to the smaller democracies. Play for time. Hang on by your fingernails. Stay beneath the radar.

That strategy ignores the disruptive forces that are undermining the liberal international order that go far beyond this president. Indeed, Trump is the consequence not the cause of these forces. The inequality created by the past wave of hyper-globalization, the decline of international trade as a proportion of the global economy, the thickening of state borders and digital boundaries, the rise of authoritarian capitalism, and illiberal democracies in the wake of a wave of populism that has swept the democratic world, and the early stages of the fourth industrial revolution all combine to amplify the forces of disruption.

It is the convergence of disruptive forces that sounds the alarm.

The heyday of the liberal international order is over. As good as it was, and as much as we in the democratic world grieve its passing, its best days are behind us. The liberal order is now challenged by Russia, by China, by strong regional leaders in Brazil and Turkey, by domestic political forces within Europe, and, of course, by the president of the United States and those voters who support him.

It is the convergence of disruptive forces that sounds the alarm

What indeed are small democratic allies to do?

Canada exemplifies the painful policy dilemmas of a lonely ally. It will have little choice in the world that is coming but to be far more strategic in the partnerships that it makes. And these partnerships will be far more issues-driven than they have been in the past.

Canada will always pay extraordinary attention to what the United States wants. We, along with Mexico, share a continent with the United States and depend on it for our prosperity and our security. More and more, however, Canada will look at the terms of the deal issue by issue, with much less confidence that goodwill built on one issue will spill over to another.

Canada will also look for other partners, on a case-by-case basis. We would be foolish to ignore China, where rapid growth will continue for at least another two decades, but we will likely approach negotiations with a skeptical eye, and a strong focus on the term sheet. Canada will have much the same approach to Russia, and many others.

This focus on strategic partnering alone or in shifting groups of states international institutions, and civil society actors that are like-minded on specific issues, will become the proxy for the more deeply embedded alliances that made the world so predictable for the past 70 years.

The irony is obvious. A strategy of selective partnering, with close attention to the specifics of the deal, is a transactional approach. It is a poor substitute for alliances that built deep relationships over time. But in a world where the leader of the democratic alliance is wholly transactional, and where the broader trends make the happier days of past alliances much less likely to reassert themselves, lonely allies have little choice.

Janice Gross Stein is Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

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Opinion: The heyday of the liberal international order is over. It's not all Trump's fault - National Post

AT the grand old age of 28, I entered Kings College Londons War Studies Department as a BA student. At this point in life, I was a social liberal, EU-loving ideologue with a strong disdain for religion.

I had originally come to the UK as an eight-year-old Iranian refugee. Growing up, I would hear stories of the atrocities committed by the Ayatollahs in Iran and consequently came to associate all the ills of the world with religion. I also liked the idea of people coming together to get rid of national identities in one great human lovefest. So the EU seemed like a great idea.

I am simplifying, of course, but this was the gist of my beliefs.

One thing that was emphasised time and again at the War Studies Department was objectivity. Over time, I became proficient at writing academic essays and applying that sought-after quality. Belatedly, I began applying objectivity to my beliefs and beloved EU-topia.

What I found was less than pleasing. The system of electing the European Assembly was not ideal; if you want a direct representative/proportional mix legislature, the German Bundestag model is far better than the mishmash cooked up in the EU. In any case, the assembly had no powers of note. All policy-making and legislation originated in the opaque (too kind a word) Commission. Any person designing a union of nations, and with an ounce of democratic sanity, would have placed power in the hands of elected representatives, and ultimately the citizenry, instead of an unelected bureaucracy.

Yet from the get-go, the EU framework was designed to prevent the people from having any say in matters. At any point when free peoples from Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Ireland had voted to halt the EU project, they were ignored and persuaded by a campaign of fear to change their minds in second referenda. In France, they were just ignored.

A set of individuals who cannot trust the people to make simple judgments such as whether their own lives are better or worse, whether they are happier or unhappier, whether they like the general direction society is going in or not, and who they trust to govern them, are not fit for power. They have a dictatorial mindset. As someone with a visceral aversion to authoritarianism, this turned my stomach. So I changed my mind, setting a course for Brexit and eventually Brexit Party membership.

You cannot change an institution from the inside if it has a top-down structure, and those with authority can filter out those who disagree with their utopian mindset.

Tyrants must fall, and the United Kingdom must leave the EU before their army is ready. The EU army is not necessary to defend Europe NATO is adequate but it is a necessity if you want to quash dissent against the EU. Not worried? You should be. No peoples anywhere in the globe are immune from dictatorship. As the old saying goes, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We have been asleep.

The path to social conservatism also began at university although I did not realise it at the time. In my earlier childish mindset, and due to my anger at the abuses of the Islamic Republic, I had come to associate faith with a weakness of mind, a fear of death by a cowardly people. Thiswasmy opinion.

Nevertheless, for all of that, I had a few friends who expressed their faith to me. Unlike most other students at university, they avoided premarital sex, were more polite, and navigated a narrow path through the alcohol-fuelled sexual minefields around them.

Society, by means of television, the music industry, the internet, computer games etc, is replete with adverts and promotions for drink, drugs, violence, sex, and money as a means of getting the aforementioned. We are bombarded by messages that liberal/lax values are not only to be tolerated but positive and worth pursuing. Giving in to these messages and pursuing bodily pleasure is an easy thing to do. Like many, I was only too happy to go along. Yet my friends of faith did not, and after four years I came to a realisation. Avoiding those pitfalls requires mental discipline, strength of mind.

If the faithful were not weak but strong, what did that make me? Pathetically weak. This question and its obvious answer forced me to reassess my entire value system. I acknowledged God. Later, after a couple of years, I gave up alcohol to be a more responsible human being. The latest culmination of pondering over faith and how best to practise it resulted in giving up the pursuit of bodily pleasure with premarital sex, and becoming a Christian. In February 2020, I am due to be baptised a Catholic.

Well, that was my route to Brexit and conservatism.

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My path to the Brexit Party, by a reformed liberal EU-lover - The Conservative Woman

NewsPoliticsDeputy leader Ed Davey laid out the Lib Dem economic policy during a speech in Leeds

Friday, 15th November 2019, 10:14 pm

The government should run a permanent spending surplus, the Liberal Democrats have said in a bid to position themselves as the toughest party on public finances.

Laying out the party's economic pitch in a speech in Leeds, deputy leader Ed Davey insisted the Conservatives and Labour were offering "fantasies" which would wreck the public finances.

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And he claimed the Lib Dems are now the leading pro-business party as he pledged to crack down on US tech giants to help British start-ups challenge larger firms in future.

Sir Ed said that if they got into government, the Lib Dems would run a 1 per cent surplus on current spending - meaning that day-to-day costs of public services would be lower than the amount raised in taxes. He claimed a "Remain bonus" would help shore up state finances.

Borrowing limit

Borrowing would only be allowed to pay for capital investment projects judged by an independent watchdog to generate more money for the taxpayer than their initial cost.

The fiscal rule is stricter than that proposed by the Conservatives, which would see current spending balancing taxation within three years. Labour also want a balanced budget but say it would take five years to reach. Sir Ed told activists: "Just look at the contrast with the other two parties. The spending competition between the Brexit parties, the Labour and Conservative fantasists, has made Santa Claus seem like Scrooge."

The Lib Dem plans are in some ways stricter than the fiscal rules introduced by George Osborne when he was Chancellor - raising the prospect of a swift return to austerity.

Sir Ed said the party would raise spending, for example on childcare, but would balance it out by a rise in corporation taxes and capital gains tax. He added: "You can still meet fiscal rules and be economically responsible, and make important environmental, social and economic investments. You just have to be honest about where the money's coming from. So on the revenue side we've talked about a Remain bonus, but we've also talked about modest tax rises."

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The Lib Dems are calling for tougher new rules on competition which could see company bosses jailed if they breach antitrust laws - claiming this would help start-ups from the UK to challenge the entrenched champions. Sir Ed told i: "These big corporates, particularly from the USA, are just taking us to the cleaners. The Tories are going to be soft on big business and give the tech giants a free pass." He dismissed Labour's call for a nationalised broadband service as "just mad economics".

The Lib Dems face continued questions over what they would do in the event of a hung parliament, when the party could hold the balance of power. They said they could work with a minority government led by Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn on an "issue by issue" but ruled out a formal coalition or confidence and supply pact.

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General election 2019: Liberal Democrats say government should run permanent spending surplus in dig at Tories and Labour - inews

David Shribman, the estimable political journalist, wrote a piece for the Globes Ideas section earlier this month suggesting that Americans have a lot to learn from Canadian democracy.

But his assertion that Canadian elections lack the toxicity so prevalent in the American political arena may be more an expression of what Americans would like to see in Canada than a representation of whats actually become of Canadian politics.

While Trudeau proclaimed this most recent election one of the nastiest in Canadian history, theres ample evidence to suggest this is more norm than exception to the rule. And if theyve long been nasty, Canadian elections are growing increasingly vacuous, too. This latest one was a lot like an episode of Seinfeld it wasnt about anything in particular and most of the main characters spent their time defending their failures and fibs.

Doubtless many Canadians breathed a sigh of relief Monday night when it became clear Trudeau would hang on as prime minister better a lackluster liberal than a paleoconservative in centrists clothing. Better still that neither the libertarian xenophobe Maxime Bernier nor any member of his upstart populist party got a seat in Parliament. Thats about the extent of the good news.

Trudeau will head back to Parliament with an inherently unstable minority government, while Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party, will stay on to lead the official opposition. Both will court members of the remaining parties; one to buttress the government, the other to sink it and return Canadians to the polls. Forty years ago, a Conservative minority government lasted just nine months in office. Canada has had seven federal elections in just the last 19 years.

. . .

CANADIAN DEMOCRACY SUFFERS from a combination of long-standing, unresolved constitutional issues, inter-regional antagonism, a generally dysfunctional politics and most troubling of all entrenched racism. That includes systemic discrimination against people within Canada and overt xenophobia towards just about anyone whod want to move there. And lately, Canada has experienced a dramatic shift toward right-wing populism at the provincial level and a surge of far-right hate groups nationwide.

The security incident in Mississauga that required Trudeau to wear body armor is unfortunately indicative of the hysterical hatred common among Canadian conservatives toward the prime minister. Despite his best efforts over the past four years to be something of an amicable and pragmatic centrist, Trudeau has managed to disappoint and disillusion Canadas left while simultaneously becoming the nightmare boogeyman of Canadas increasingly unhinged right.

Did you know Justin Trudeau stopped the presses of Canadas largest newspaper to prevent it from reporting a sexual relationship with a student while he was a private high school teacher? That Sharia is the new law of Ontario? That American-backed anti-pipeline protesters have sabotaged Canadas oil and gas industry?

Youd be correct in assuming that all of these stories are complete and utter nonsense. But Canadas fake news has gained remarkable traction, with an assist from mainstream Canadian media.

The latter two conspiracy theories have received considerable ink in Canadas largest newspaper chain, Postmedia, which in addition to publishing Canadas only national newspaper, owns every daily in nearly every city west of Toronto.

Among the Alex Jones-like headlines they have turned out about the supposed American conspiracy to shut down Canadas tarsands oil industry: Researcher exposes money trail behind US-based campaign to kill the oilsands; How foreign-backed anti-oil activists infiltrated Canadas government; The Great American conspiracy to sabotage Canadian oilpatch.

Though these theories are easily debunked theyre also defended by many of the countrys leading think tanks, nearly all of which are inter-connected through third-party political action groups and the Kochs Atlas Network, and whose endless stream of dubious, non-academic research is popularized by pundits, politicians, social media, and even the former attorney general of British Columbia.

If this all sounds very familiar, it should. Politics in Canada like many so-called liberal democracies the world over has moved right in the wake of the current American presidents ascendancy. Even if Scheers apparent ties to GOP strategists cant be definitely proven, his campaign manager is a former board member of Rebel Media, Canadas leading supplier of far-right wing paranoia masquerading as journalism.

Remember that story about Trudeau trying to cover up a sex scandal when he was a high school teacher? This gem came from the Buffalo Chronicle, an American website thats mediocre at covering the Greater Niagara Region yet somehow has the inside track on a wide variety of career-ending scandals plaguing the upper echelons of Canadas government. Even though the Chronicle is the journalistic equivalent of a diploma mill, the story was picked up by the Conservative Party and all its downstream social media partners.

This is hardly the behavior of a robust democracy.

. . .

THE PROBLEMS IN Canada are unfortunately not limited to media consolidation, fake news, and the manipulation of social media to achieve political ends. These are the symptoms, not the cause, of Canadas degenerating democracy.

Far more significant is the racism and hatred thats been simmering gently on the back burner for generations, now fully unleashed as Canadas right looks south for its inspiration. The crisis on our southern border began when people started fleeing America to take their chances with Canadas refugee system, fearing certain deportation in what was once the land that welcomed the tired, the poor, and those yearning to breathe free.

The acceptance of so many refugees produced a brief moment of national pride and some ham-fisted comparisons to the Underground Railroad. But it wasnt long before Canadas civil and cordial politics degenerated into coarse Conservative talking points. First they were irregular migrants, then they were queue-jumpers, then they became illegal and now, at least according to party leader Scheer, theyre possibly members of MS-13.

Canadas crippling racism problem should have been front and center throughout the election. Instead the whole conversation focused on how it affected Trudeau, who had dressed up in blackface and brownface as a young man and has a stubborn adult tendency toward ethnic dress-up.

That at any given moment 70 or so Indigenous communities in Canada remain on permanent boil water advisories, or that there are anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 missing and presumed murdered Indigenous women and girls, or that people of color are regularly and disproportionately harassed by the police in Toronto and Montreal never came up.

Theres perhaps no better demonstration of the intersection of Canadas ascending racism and its lackadaisical leadership than how its six party leaders have addressed the highly controversial decision by the government of Quebec to legalize overt discrimination against religious minorities in the public sector barring certain public employees from wearing religious symbols in the workplace. That is, none of the party leaders have come out strongly against it, preferring to dodge the issue by pointing to the apparently delicate sensibilities of the Quebecois. This spinelessness is as characteristic of Canadian politicians as it is of Americans.

And if you think the electoral college is bad, consider that Canadas first-past-the-post voting system effectively voids any vote that doesnt go to the winning candidate in an electoral riding (the equivalent of a congressional district). Canadian governments can be formed with as little as a quarter of the populations support, and the executive and legislative vote is one in the same, the national leader being chosen only by registered members of the party, not the public at large. Canadas Senate, the chamber of sober second thought, is entirely appointed. Electoral reform has been proposed and promised for over a century, but as long as it reinforces and sustains elite rule, its dropped as soon as a government is formed. Political dysfunction and anemic voting rates are among the few constants in Canadian politics.

Issues that were once firmly behind us legalized abortion, gun control are being resurrected by local lobby groups with financial ties (and a rhetorical base) firmly rooted in their American equivalents. They claim theyre only asking questions, but in practice its just another step in the normalization of all of Canadas worst instincts.

Canada cannot must not be the ideal for the American left; American progressives must aspire to do much more and be far better. Canadas successes are unfortunately overshadowed by its many failures failures that continue for the most part unchallenged by a political aristocracy that has evolved over successive generations. A Canadian federal election is hardly inspiring; quite the opposite. It reminds us of all the broken promises, the entrenched dysfunction, the sleaze and slime that form the foundation of the nations politics.

America has already picked its worst possible president and in so doing may have finally broken its own dysfunctional politics. Its always darkest before the dawn, and Americans have an incredible ability to induce radical progressive change from time to time. Canadians, by contrast, are handicapped by their own exceptionalism, inflated egos, and widespread malaise. Rather than put Canadian politics on a pedestal, Americans should be both more knowledgeable of Canadas politics and far more critical of its glaring failures.

Canadians simply wont take their shortcomings seriously until they elicit the scrutiny of Americans.

Taylor C. Noakes is a journalist and public historian from Montreal.

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Canada is not the liberal paradise you imagine - The Boston Globe